What powerful words. That is to say that what you see, what you believe, what you thought was real, is not. Those are the words permeating the news waves during this past week at Nelson Mandela's funeral when a sign language interpreter was discovered to be "fake."
I clearly recall watching some of the memorial and paying attention to the interpreter. I am facinated by the ability to deliver the message to those unable to receive it. I recall something a speaker said when he said "they walked side by side" and I watched for that sign to which the interpreter raised both index fingers and brought them together. It looked real to me!
In the past I have sat through numerous interpreters who are translating English to Spanish. Usually the interpreter excells in one language or the other, in this case Spanish. Their inablity to recognize the English word causes them to interpret it incorrectly often changing the context of the sentence. I am able to recognize that. I often tell my husband something like "That's not exactly what that means." However, to the receiving parties, they don't know better, anymore than I did when I watched the sign language interpreter.
Within hours, it was discovered that this individual at the memorial service was a fake. That was supported by the fact that a true, certified sign language interpreter also saw the memorial and realized that it was not being translated correctly. Not only was it not being interpreted correctly, the certified interpreter did not recognize many of the gestures.
As a result of this discovery, the memorial interpreter stepped up and acknowledged that he was not a true interpreter and in fact had serious medical issues. How does this happen?
In our world today, there are many who do not recognize the Word of God. That is the foundation of our belief. It is important to know God's Word in order to dispute what is "fake." There will be those who come proclaiming an idea, theory, story or other relevelation contrary to God's Word. However, if we are not absolutely certain of His truth, we will not recognize false as false.
It is important for us to protect us against the falsehoods of this world. Some of it will look and sound as good as that interpreter did and if we are not prepared with the truth, we may fall into the lie. Keeping in God's Word is the only way to protect ourselves from that. Do you know how I know? God has already told me in His word to prepare for those coming who will not be in truth. Had I been prepared and certified in sign language, I would have been able to say "He's fake" and not rely on someone else to tell me.
I want to be prepared and recognize truth and the only way I can do that is by staying in the Word of God. How about you?
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretely introduce the destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them-bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them and their destruction has not been sleeping. 2 Peter 2:1-3
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